Inherent Vice's Inherent Vice

[Mark Kohut]

Rich,

Your instinct about your experience is right. I've been in publishing and books have been made cheaper and cheaper. Every penny shaved, etc....

Hardcovers were still called clothbound not long ago, long after they were cheap cardboard-like covers. had an editor-friend who refused to say clothbound at meetings, saying 'they are not"... Bindings used to be SEWN!.....see, if interested, how John Updike had it in his contracts how
his books should be made.....

Mark 

--- On Sun, 8/16/09, Tore Rye Andersen <torerye at hotmail.com> wrote:

> From: Tore Rye Andersen <torerye at hotmail.com>
> Subject: RE: Inherent Vice's Inherent Vice
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Sunday, August 16, 2009, 11:51 AM
> 
> Rich Clavey: 
> 
> > I am not quite halfway through my first reading and my
> copy is already 
> > falling apart with multiple spinebreaks. I don't mind
> paying 25-30 dollars 
> > for a book these days but is it just me or are books
> made really cheaply now?
> 
> Many new books don't really seem to be designed for
> reading, or at least
> rereading. Back when AtD was published I put forth the
> thesis that books and
> book bindings are subject to Gresham's law (my AtD fell
> apart after two readings
> and had to be glued back together). Your experience would
> seem to substantiate
> my scientific thesis. But the books sure look good on the
> shelf! As long as you
> don't actually start fondling them, o-or reading them.
>  
> http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0611&msg=110687&sort=date
>  
>  
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